Gov. John Hickenlooper is close to wrapping up his fifth legislative session. (Photo By Brent Lewis/The Denver Post)

Gov. John Hickenlooper urged lawmakers Thursday to kill a House bill banning red-light cameras and photo radar, and instead introduce new legislation with restrictions on the devices and the revenues they raise.

Last year, a red-light camera bill from a fellow Democrat, then Speaker House Mark Ferrandino, died after the governor made it clear he didn’t want the measure making it to his desk.

This year, Hickenlooper made his suggestions known publicly rather than working behind the scenes. He proposed the legislature restrict the use of fines to be credited only toward traffic safety improvements and related purposes, rather than to a local government’s general operating revenue.

He also said it should limit the use of photo-radar and red-light cameras to intersections and road/highway segments located in school zones, construction and roadway work zones, areas determined to have disproportionately high traffic accidents, injuries and fatalities, areas with high volumes of traffic violations coupled with resident or business requests for automated traffic enforcement.

“Lastly, the General Assembly should direct the Colorado Department of Transportation to conduct a comprehensive study of the use of these technologies, including an impartial analysis on their impacts to road safety and effect on driver behavior,” the governor said.

“We believe this approach will preserve local governments’ authority to decide whether to employ this important traffic safety tool, while also ensuring public confidence and trust.”

A bill in the Colorado House that would ban red-light traffic cameras, like this one at East Sixth Avenue and East Speer Boulevard in Denver. (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file photo)

The letter was sent to Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, and distributed to lawmakers.

House Bill 1098 is awaiting action in the House after it passed out of committee last week to the surprise of Democrats, who were hoping to see the measure killed. Opponents of the bill, by Republicans Reps. Steve Humphrey of Severance and Kevin Van Winkle of Highlands Ranch, included city and police officials, who maintain red-light cameras and photo radar make communities safer.

Humphrey said he’s already agreed to allow Democrats to try to amend his measure.

The letter doesn’t directly address a separate Senate red-light camera bill that calls for local governments to let their citizens decide on using the cameras or else face the loss of federal transportation money. One of the Senate sponsors, David Balmer, a Centennial Republican, took note that the governor didn’t mention his bill.

“I’m very optimistic that our bill is a potential compromise he can accept,” Balmer said.

Here is Hickenlooper’s full letter:

Dear President Cadman and Speaker Hullinghorst:

This letter concerns House Bill 15-1098, “Concerning the Elimination of the Use of Automated Vehicle Identification Systems for Traffic Law Enforcement.”

Speeding and disregard for traffic signals are among the most prevalent hazards on public roads, endangering the safety of drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding has consistently been the cause, or contributing cause, of roughly 30 percent of all vehicle accidents. This session, the General Assembly is considering the use of automated vehicle identification systems on public roads, commonly referred to as photo-radar and red-light cameras.

Providing safe and walkable streets is a priority for all communities. This requires well engineered roads, well-kept infrastructure, and law enforcement personnel. As a former Mayor, I know all too well the challenges of operating under tight budgets, and the hard choices that local government officials must make. In a time when law enforcement personnel are stretched, photo-radar and red-light cameras allow traffic laws to be enforced on dangerous intersections, roads,
and highways using minimal or no taxpayer dollars. These technologies permit officers to reallocate valuable time to other enforcement activities, while not sacrificing the safety of our roads.

In recent years, there has been a worthwhile debate on the validity of photo-radar and red-light cameras and their proper role. We can certainly appreciate the public’s need for assurance that these tools are used in the most responsible way — one that instills trust in government and confidence that public safety is paramount. Photo-radar and red-light cameras should have a single purpose — ensuring the safety of drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

To that end, legislation should guarantee that these tools remain available to enhance public safety, while also guaranteeing that their use be measured and restricted to accident-prone zones. Furthermore, we believe that local governments are best equipped to determine how to enforce traffic laws for their communities. When the General Assembly authorized the use of photo-radar and red-light cameras, it had the wisdom to allow each local government to decide for itself whether to use these technologies. Cities, towns, and counties may decide for themselves. This prudent action by the Legislature should not be undone by House Bill 15-1098, which lays a blanket prohibition on all communities from using these tools.

We urge the General Assembly to dispose of House Bill 15-1098, which provides a blanket prohibition in the bill title, and enact new legislation that would limit the use of photo-radar and red-light cameras, but only on intersections and road/highway segments located in: (1) school zones; (2) construction and roadway work zones; (3) areas determined to have disproportionately high traffic accidents, injuries, and fatalities; and (4) areas with high volumes
of traffic violations coupled with resident or business requests for automated traffic enforcement.

Furthermore, the legislature should restrict the use of photo-radar and red-light camera fines to be credited only toward traffic safety improvements and related purposes, rather than to a local government’s general operating revenue. Lastly, the General Assembly should direct the Colorado Department of Transportation to conduct a comprehensive study of the use of these technologies, including an impartial analysis on their impacts to road safety and effect on driver
behavior. We believe this approach will preserve local governments’ authority to decide whether to employ this important traffic safety tool, while also ensuring public confidence and trust.

As always, we are ready to work with you in this endeavor, and to achieve a solution that respects local control and protects the safety of the driving public, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

I have no problem with red light cameras for cars that literally run red lights (i.e., don’t enter the intersection until after the light turns red). Without looking at statistics, I have to assume reducing these infractions would make the streets safer.

Of course, cities then took advantage of the situation by fining cars with a tire over an intersection line (sometimes because the car in front of them unexpectedly stops.) Limiting what types of infractions are allowed to be ticketed seems to be another option. Telling cities where they have to spend the money doesn’t have much appeal–cities will look for loopholes in those definitions.

I completely agree. They are way too aggressive for those going ever so slightly over the line, especially for those making a right turn. Make them slightly less aggressive and I have no issue with them at all.

The majority of fines are produced by not stopping before turning right
on red. The chances of being in an accident during this maneuver are extremely low. The truly dangerous red light runners, not the guy who
blew through a split second into the red phase, will not be stopped by a
red light scamera. If they can’t see the red light, then they’re not
going to see the sign that says “photo enforced”. They’ll get a ticket
in the mail and the city has some great footage to say, “See, these
things stopped a dangerous red light runner. Oh wait.”.

I disagree that the chances of an accident when turning on red is low. Quite the opposite from my experience because people turning right on red ignore the fact that they must first stop on red in order to turn on red.

So all the statistics that say otherwise are wrong? In all my years of driving I’ve never even had a close call with someone turning right from perpendicular traffic. If the person isn’t looking to their left when making a right turn then they need to be removed fro the road. A scamera won’t do that.

I’m not a proponent of the cameras, I just wanted to point out that turning right on red drivers do cause many closes calls. The ones I encounter generally don’t even come to a full stop and then look at you like it was your job to avoid them. Turning right on red is legal when its safe to do so i.e no one is coming. Drivers in Colorado think it’s an automatic that if they are turning right they can just “California stop” and then proceed with no regard to traffic.

The problem with ticketing for that is at most intersections where I turn right on red, you have to pull out slightly across the stop line in order to safely see if traffic is coming. Poor engineering, once again.

The governor pretends he doesn’t know these cameras violate the Bill of Rights and he is playing on the ignorance of Colorado drivers in suggesting ANY use of them. Stop fleecing your constituents Governor!

Thanks for answering the question and attempting to insult me. What kind of time span is “much longer”? It would be beneficial to know when my rights are going away, approximately but which rights, you won’t say.

If you remove the “i” from their name and substitute a “u” for the “e”, you’ll begin to understand. S/he’s obviously a Republican because anything s/he doesn’t like is either illegal or a violation of the Constitution, or both.

If you Left-wing bozos would bother to Google it, the constitutional problem with red-light cameras is that they improperly presume guilt:

“There are certain questions that are germane to establishing the severity of an offense: Was the accused keeping up with traffic? Were the roads wet? Was the speeder reacting to a dangerous or reckless driver?” the piece states. “Machines cannot answer these questions, only people can.”

News flash, Dillwinkle. Red light cameras, like so many other things people like you cavil at, are inanimate objects. As such, they cannot “assume” anything. They merely gather evidence which some human must interpret. It’s not a difficult concept.

Rice University did a study that showed red light scameras did nothing to reduce crashes in intersections but the actually increased rear-enders leading up to the intersection because of people slamming on their brakes. They also showed how ATS, the traffic scamera company, gets governments to shorten light cycles from yellow to green to catch more red light runners. There are engineering studies out there that show what kind of time span is most effective on the yellow to red light cycle.

I would favor enforcing the traffic laws in proportion to the danger posed by the violations of law observed; bicyclists and pedestrians are being killed by automobiles all too frequently in Denver, but I have yet to read of a single motorist killed by a bicyclist. Since about the only traffic enforcement in Denver now relates to revenue collection (e.g. bus lane strictures or school speed zones without students), any applied to getting people to stop at stop signs and red lights — or even staying on the right side of the road — would be welcome. The right-of-way in Denver, especially off major roads, has become a matter of negotiation, because disregard for requirements to yield and failure to signal one’s intentions is now so universal that that is the only way to get through intersections safely.

Brilliant argument. A cyclist does not kill a motorist. Nothing like a keen eye for the obvious. How many times have you seen a cyclist simply pause at an intersection then continue thru even though the same direction traffic is stopped? That cyclist needs to be ticketed and fined. The cyclist is bound by the same traffic laws as the motorist. I am a cyclist so obviously not anit-cyclist.

No, of course not — nothing anti-cyclist about proposing enforcement of the absurd standard of parity between cars and bicycles posited by our present, mostly ignored traffic laws, which would deprive cyclists of much of the benefit afforded by their vehicles in urban traffic, and most of their driver’s license, if issued citations for moving violations.

If we want to make the roads safer (as opposed simply to enforce a set of arbitrary laws), we will act to curb what behavior that poses the greatest risk of harm — everything that bicyclists do taken together rarely poses a risk to anyone other than themselves and the first priority of traffic enforcement should be to curb irresponsible behavior on the part of the operators of the very much more massive motorized vehicles which do routinely kill and injure others and destroy property. We should be building bike lanes segregated from other traffic so that bicyclists aren’t having to contend with Denver’s lawless, clueless drivers in the first place!

92% of all red light runners do so because the government forces them do so. By using an math equation for setting yellow light durations which conflicts with physics, the government literally forces drivers to run red lights. If you know introductory physics, this one page doc will reveal the scam:

Giving cities more ‘loopholes’ to abuse does nothing to help your constituents, Hick. We should have voted this clown out the last cycle. Red-light cameras are ‘predatory’, and most people know this already…..

Hickenlooper is addicted to stealing money from taxpayers by supporting this scam. These red light cameras don’t promote safety at all. As a citizen, I urge lawmakers to pass this bill. If you want to promote safety, enforce the law with police officers and invest in infrastructure improvements for roads that people drive on.

We don’t need CDOT to do yet another study of the ineffectiveness of red light cameras, pretending to ignore the voluminous research already out there that only proper traffic engineering measures will reduce red light running safely and effectively.

But we know why they won’t do that… Proper timing of the yellow light doesn’t make money for the cities or the private companies running the cameras.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.